Death is Forgiven
by Bluemist562
Summary: (Role swap AU) Auriel, Archangel of Death was defeated. Yet she didn't die. And never in Itherael's life had he felt so contradicted. Imperius, Malthael and Tyrael had also managed to get into this mess as well.
1. Arrival

**Based off of TransfanOMG's fanart of the Angiris Council swapping roles. I like the idea that Malthael didn't actually DIE but was horrifyingly wounded by the souls coming out of his body. And now since TransFan (she's Miss Gem here) stated that Auriel was the Archangel of Wisdom/Death in their fanart I had the idea to write this.** **(Forgive me because I mention my OC in here as well and not to mention that I am Auriel x Itherael trash)**

 **Here Itherael is the Archangel of Valor**

 **Imperius is the Archangel of Hope**

 **Tyrael is the Archangel of Fate (still an angel)**

 **Malthael the Archangel of Justice (okay let's just say that he's still an angel for time's sake)**

Itherael, Archangel of Valor stared down at the ghostly silhouette of Auriel's body, her scythe lay broken next to the shadow.

"Brother she might be alive still. Do not lose hope." Imperius said in an attempt to comfort him. It was true though, a thorough search of the Pandemonium Fortress showed no sign of essence nor armour. It was a small, hollow thing to hold onto but better than the crippling thought of Auriel's death.

Itherael looked up at the Nephalem, who had then become one with death. "Sacrilege." Valor muttered, much to Imperius' dismay. Itherael let out a huff of frustration, walking out of the Pandemonium Fortress and teleporting back to the High Heavens.

Under Itherael's orders, a lone Ranger angel from his ranks (the only surviving one for that matter) was sent down to look for any sign of Auriel. Days of impatient pacing in the Halls of Valor turned to weeks of small glimmers of hope which were snuffed out like a candle.

A month had passed and no news had returned from the Ranger. By then even Imperius seemed to lose hope at ever finding their fallen brethren. That was until a week afterwards, when a crossbow arrow struck a wall of one of the Pools of Wisdom. There was a hastily carved message engraved into the wood, alerting them that Auriel had indeed been found but proved difficult to be moved because of her state.

Despite much argument between himself and Malthael, Justice was sent down to help the Ranger in safely moving back Auriel to her home. Itherael was left to question why the Ranger took so long to find her, "An angel, fallen or not would be easy to trace!" he had cursed, the Ranger stood still, "Yes Itherael but the more worrying thing is that I couldn't find a trace of her, in all Sanctuary there was no sign of her. It was as though Auriel had managed to make herself invisible. Or someone had taken her."

This caused much ruckus in Itherael's mind, taken? The Ranger made no sense and with an angry wave of dismissal, Valor was left pondering.

Imperius was already by Auriel's side when the remaining 3 angels silently rushed in. The healers were carefully removing her cracked armour, setting it aside by the wall. Black wrappings around her chest were left unmoved. Imperius assisted in the removal of her lower leg armour, revealing sickening open wounds, still dripping of essence. Silver markings spread out of her chest, a clear reminder of when the souls were ripped out of Auriel. Her hood was slightly tilted to reveal the left side of her face. Which to the angel's alarm was torn by a long white scratch across her cheek. Whatever the Ranger had meant by taken she was correct.

Auriel moved her head slightly to see her brethren, black eyes glancing between the 4 before settling on Itherael. It was disturbing to see how such eyes, once filled with curiosity and life were now blank of any emotion. Auriel looked down again, slowly moving her hand to shift her hood back in place. A long scratch, still leaking of essence on her back was seen by the Archangels, causing alarm bells to ring through their head.

A deep rumbling from her throat erupted as Imperius peeled off the last of her left leg's armour. More open wounds were found, one that was sickeningly infected with what looked like demonic essence, a small shard of metal was still imbedded in it. Hesitantly Itherael cupped his hand around Auriel's wrist, she made no move to remove it, instead silently moving her arm back to clasp his hand.

"Who did this to you Auriel?" Malthael asked out of pure shock, his question was met by silence by the Archangel of Wisdom

"Demons, powerful ones still lurk in Sanctuary." Tyrael uttered. Itherael let out a small growl at the mention of the High Heaven's one enemy.

Auriel let out a hiss of pain, tightening her grip on Itherael's hand, alerting the rest of the room. Underneath their hoods, eyes widened as an angel carefully removed the shard of metal from the wound. Dropping it into a basin nearby, the water inside turned a shade of grey. The wounds were quickly wrapped around with bandages, the angels' new focus was to treat the long wound on Auriel's back. Itherael squeezed her cold hand comfortingly in an attempt to distract her from the pain.

She turned around for the healers to analyse the wound, also rimmed with a dark red essence. Her wings, were thankfully back to their blue tendrils, which twitched in pain as the angels continued their work. Another audible hiss of discomfort echoed through the room as the angels dabbed the wound with a cleaning gauze, making the dark red disappear.

"Lord Tyrael's point stands correct, powerful demons, still alive could have laid an ambush and." the healer paused, not wanting to begin mentioning the attack that could have happened, "the blade shard also is evidence of this, the blade is neither Nephalem, nor Angelic."

Itherael's wings flared with anger, even without a leader the demons dared to launch an attack on the Archangel, they dared to take her to Hell.

"Send a courier to the Ranger," Malthael suggested, looking at one of the healers, "tell her that she needs to come before the Council on the topic."

With a small nod the healer quickly left the room, "Justice will be served." Malthael muttered, rage bubbling inside of him. Itherael nodded solemnly, eyes staring daggers at the small blade shard.

Imperius said nothing, still helping in bandaging Auriel's wound.

Only Tyrael noticed a small detail in the room that seemed out of place.

That being that neither Itherael nor Auriel had let go of the other's hand.

 **Was that good? I'm planning to write a whole story on this if life allows me such luxuries ^_^. Is this counted as a slow burn? (By the way, sorry for the seemingly short chapters, getting used to writing longer chapters!)**


	2. Can You Still Forgive Me?

A week had passed after Auriel's arrival. She had recovered quickly and had begun to come back to her state of mind before Inarius' betrayal. Yet the Archangel of Wisdom refused to utter a word of the past events that lead her to being wounded. Tyrael had tried to persuade her and she remained silent, that was the same result for all four of her brethren.

It was as if she was trying to forget the entire thing, that her becoming darkened and bent on destroying all of Sanctuary was nothing. For her injuries, Itherael occasionally spotted her looking down at the bandages on her leg, her mouth twisted as if she was thinking on how to deal with them. Apart from her own telling, the wounds were the only proof that she was attacked.

Auriel secluded herself still, a desperate effort to avoid the other angels and her brethren. Rarely did she come to council meetings and they would have to send Itherael to lead her out of her sanctum. This thankfully proved to be an easy task because as soon as she spotted the Archangel of Valor her wings seemed to lift and she glided along silently with him to the council.

Her injuries healed gradually, under orders from Imperius not to wear any of her leg armour and for chest armour to be at a minimal. She would limp if she was without support from someone and Itherael gladly held out his arm for her to take. The long cut across the left side of her face healed the quickest, all that remained was a light scar that could barely be noticed.

The only thing that worried all the council was her refusal to speak about anything but the agenda of the meeting. She would nod a hello but never say a word. The most worried of her brethren, seconded by Imperius was Itherael. Did she still trust them after all that they did?

Long before the Worldstone was taken, Valor occasionally took the opportunity of a slight darkness in the Heavens to visit the Pools of Wisdom, Auriel would be waiting and smile as she saw Itherael wander in.

Valor decided to revisit that old tradition in an effort to get Auriel to talk.

Under the thin veil as a cloud passed over the sun, he had gone over to Wisdom's domain. Much to his surprise he saw Auriel, looking up as if expecting him. "Over a millennia ago we would meet each other here, I believe it was time for us to revisit that." she spoke. Itherael glided over to her, letting out a small chuckle, "You read my mind as usual." he said.

The two glided through to the deeper chambers of the Pools in order to avoid being found out. Auriel leaned into Itherael as they seated themselves in a small corner of the wall.

"Have our brethren forgiven me?" Auriel asked,

Itherael looked down on Wisdom in surprise, "As soon as you stepped foot in the High Heavens we forgave you."

"That doesn't answer my question." she replied,

"It-" Itherael was cut-off when Auriel turned around, black eyes staring through his soul.

"Do you forgive me? I stole the Black Soulstone Itherael." she said softly, "I killed many of our brethren and comrades without much of a second thought. I destroyed what little victory we had, and set Diablo loose." she stopped, hands moving up to grip at Valor's breastplate. "Can you forgive me still?" she whispered.

Itherael couldn't find the strength to speak, looking down at Auriel in pure shock. "They tortured me in Hell, Itherael. Taunted me. Saying how you could never forgive me. How none of the council would forgive me after all that I had done." She sniffed, lowering her head to brush Itherael's chestplate, "They always mentioned you the most, saying that Valor had no mercy on those who attacked the High Heavens, I was a traitor to my own kind." a tear slowly dropped down to the floor, "They said I would never be accepted. I'm not Hope, I listened to them in my weakened state, I heard their words and saw only darkness. My mind was broken in there Itherael. I was broken in there."

Inside the dark abodes of Hell it seemed like there was no escape. The demons left the shackles on her hands and feet open, laughing at how she still remained still even though the only thing damages was her pride and mind. Their task was finished, they had broken her to the point where she found no hope. No little flicker of light. Her wings had long since been reduced back to their blue rays of light, yet even her wings were lying on the ground. She remembered how she had slowly brought herself up, her last ounce of determination bent on getting away from this dark abyss. The guards noticed her right away, calling for reinforcement but she did not here them, she began flying up, the exit so close to her when the air-borne sword made a long cut through her back. She gritted her teeth and burst out into Sanctuary, more of the demons came but by then the Ranger whom she had taken her comrades came down. Her efforts were valiant but she was getting overpowered, a stray demon had slipped through and blindly cut through her cheek and struck at her leg, Auriel had kicked it away and the Ranger fired an arrow from her crossbow, causing a loud explosion that burnt the demons to ashes. Both were weak from the ordeal, the Ranger managing to carve a message into another arrow and firing it so that it could reach the High Heavens.

Malthael appeared not soon after, wordlessly picking up Auriel and opening a portal for all 3 to go through.

The tears began to cascade down, punctuated by small hiccups and sobs. Itherael said nothing, inside he was terrified of how the demons had begun to slowly break down Auriel, furious of how they dared attack her. Yet Valor let none of that go towards Wisdom. Instead he wrapped his arms around her, careful not to add pressure to her cut. "You are forgiven Auriel." he muttered over and over again in an attempt to rehabilitate her from crying.

She stopped to look at him, "Why?" she uttered, cheeks still wet with tears. Itherael held her tighter, she wrapped her arms around him for support, "Because no matter your actions, no matter where you go and stray. I will always be here, waiting to welcome you back regardless. Because I love you."

Auriel let out another sob, moving herself slightly for both of her arms to ring around Itheral's neck.

"You are forgiven Auriel."

"You are forgiven."

 ***blows nose* well that was a sappy ending *more blowing nose* hope you liked it!**


End file.
